[Texas_Jarhead]

Right. I understand that. But if 17Bn monkeys on 17Bn worlds over 17Bn years can't type a ten word phrase then how can I learn to breathe air in say 2 or 3 billion years even if there were 17Bn of me?

Is typing that phrase that much more difficult than say growing a new organ of which I have no preconceived notions of fit or form (I'll give you function)?

[Lev]

Is typing that phrase that much more difficult than say growing a new organ of which I have no preconceived notions of fit or form (I'll give you function)?

Yes. The point is that you don't grow a new organ in one shot and then say "wow, how improbable is that!". A mutation produces a change that makes you a little bit better fit for the environment. You produce more offsprings who inherit this change. A whole lot more generations later another mutation makes your descendant a little better fit, etc. Then, when you compare yourself to one of your descendants you may notice that the accumulated changes resulted in a new organ. Regards.

[Doctor Stochastic]

You can't. You die (as an indivitual.) Selection works on pheontypes, mutation and evolution works on genotypes. You might ask how tuberculosis bacteria survived to develop the genes necessary to resist antibiotics. Some didn't, obviously.